To think that schools should have PE more than once a week

[ReallyTired]

My daughter's school has PE in one two hour block so that the teachers can have their non contact time in a two hour block. There is an arguement that the children spend more of their time running about and less of their time changing. However I feel that one two hour PE session a week is not enough for fitness.

Its interesting to see the chinese teachers making the children start the day with exercises. I would not want children to have chinese style PE lessons, but there is a lot to be said for regular PE. I feel that children who are struggling with PE should have a complusory after school PE lessons.

YABVU. My daughter is dyspraxic and struggles with school PE lessons. However, outside of school she loves sports that are more appropriate to her needs, such as horse riding, which school would never be able to provide. School PE makes her feel useless, inferior, and embarrassed - and no amount of extra coaching is going to improve her physical ability.

Would you also propose compulsory after school spelling tests for dyslexic children?

"and no amount of extra coaching is going to improve her physical ability."

Why do you believe that? Do you really believe that physiotherapists are useless? My son's child phsyio really made a huge difference to his quality of life as a toddler. Unfortunately his ligaments are really tight again because of a growth spurt during his teens. He is now seeing and adult physio and he is already seeing the benefits after 3 weeks of stretching excercises.

My son is having physio at the moment and he is being taught how to run by the NHS as part of a solution of resolving a seperate problem. My son ligaments are so tight it is painful to climb stairs. I wish he had the help years ago when he was in primary. Simple things like a stretching programme have really helped him in the last few weeks.

"OP why is it the school's responsibility to provide PE detention for your unfit and low achieving (in sport) child? What are you and his father doing to improve his fitness etc?"

I know its out of fashion now, but "every child matters" used to be a big thing in state schools. I feel the aims of every child matters is good, even if its a little cheesy.

www.workingwithkids.co.uk/every-child-matters-policy-explained.html

You might ask why we should bother? The simple answer is to prevent long term health problems.

Lets replace "unfit" with an inablity to read. Maybe we should ask the parents of dyslexic children what they are doing to improve their child's reading. There would be uproar if it was suggested that shitty parenting was the cause of a child struggling to read. There would be uproar at the suggestion of giving up on a child because they are dyslexic and they don't like reading.

Children who struggle with fitness needs a safe haven where they are not going to laughed at by more able children. They need skilled coaching with a smaller teacher/ therapist to child ratio.

I work in a school and we have 2x PE lessons a week. We also utilise every other opportunity to get the kids active. We have Fit Club from 8.15 - 8.50, games and Play Leaders at both playtimes and at lunch and many after school clubs that cater for a wide variety of sports and other things such as art, ICT, cooking, gardening etc. All classes also start the day with aerobics with their class teacher. There are plenty of opportunities during the school day to squeeze in some exercise, but ultimately the responsibility lies with the parent. The school doing 1 two hour session a week, is in fact meeting Physical Ed requirements. If you as a parent don't think it's enough, then do some things with them yourself! Don't forget that it is equally important to ensure that you teach your kids about leading a healthy lifestyle re diet and emotional wellbeing. In my opinion, any parent moaning about the lack of PE in schools is just a lazy one who cba to exercise their children themselves. You chose to have kids and you are responsible for it, not the school. So get up off your arse and do something with your kids instead of moaning about it!

reallytired your son has a physical problem with his ligaments, yes physio will help by stretching and teaching him techniques. I don't think doing more of the same school PE would have the same effect, so I don't understand why you're advocating extra PE for children who struggle. Wouldn't your son become more disheartened by being subjected to more PE, causing him pain and embarrassment when he falls behind his peers?

bustles child has dyspraxia. This isn't exactly a physical problem, though it often manifests itself as such, it's neurological. Doing extra PE, even in small groups with a higher adult ratio, won't help to address the underlying deficit. An occupational therapy program might help, but that's not the same as extra PE. A typical OT program involves fine motor skills, visual/auditory perception work to help address the neurological deficits, as well as specific gross motor skills, stretches and strength work.

By specific gross motor skills, I mean broken down into small skills such as crossing the midline, using an index finger accurately, using both hands simultaneously. If a dyspraxic child can't catch a ball, no amount of throwing the ball at them in PE will help. They need to be taught to track the ball by eye, process the visual information, use both hands simultaneously, and the specific motor pattern used when catching the ball. And not all of those skills fall under 'PE'.

OP why do you keep referring to children who are poor at school PE being unfit etc? What does being able to catch a ball etc have to do with fitness and overall activity levels?

YABU, I'm dyspraxic and hated PE. It actually put me off sport

Children who struggle with fitness needs a safe haven where they are not going to laughed at by more able children. They need skilled coaching with a smaller teacher/ therapist to child ratio.

Which is the type of coaching available to children who participate in sports outside of school hours. If you feel your child needs to participate in a sport not offered at school, then sign then up after school hours or on the weekend.

"reallytired your son has a physical problem with his ligaments, yes physio will help by stretching and teaching him techniques. I don't think doing more of the same school PE would have the same effect, so I don't understand why you're advocating extra PE for children who struggle. Wouldn't your son become more disheartened by being subjected to more PE, causing him pain and embarrassment when he falls behind his peers?"

If my son had had earlier intervention then he would have felt less pain without any doult An inablity to run or manage other skills should be a red flag. The threshold at which a child is given child physio on the NHS is quite high.

PE stands for physical education. I think you need to take a step back and think what physical education means. I see PE as improving fine and gross motor skills, rather than Kes style 1970s PE teacher barking sadistic orders. Thankfully my son has always had kind PE teachers. In my view the techniques that my son has been taught is physical education of a sort. Certainly his ablity at conventional PE has improved dramatically.

The excercises that my son has been given at the age of 13 by a physio are similar to the conditioning and balance excercises that my six year old is given by her gymnastics club. The difference between the two of them is that my daughter has learnt to do the splits where as ds can now walk down a flight of stairs without winching in pain in the morning. I just wish he had never got to the stage of being in pain.

"Which is the type of coaching available to children who participate in sports outside of school hours. If you feel your child needs to participate in a sport not offered at school, then sign then up after school hours or on the weekend."

Not all parents can afford their children to do sport or want the hassle.

Not all parents can afford their children to do sport or want the hassle.

So why does it become the responsibility of the school if the parent can't be bothered with the 'hassle'?

Yes the techniques your son has been taught are education of the physical type.

However, in a school, PE is a primarily gross motor skills lesson, usually concentrating on 'dance', gymnastics, athletics and team sports.

If you're advocating that there should be more of a range of PE in school, with physiotherapists, occupational therapists and coaches all having an input, rather than just saying schools aren't doing enough (suggesting they need more of the same) then I'd be more inclined to agree with you.

However, schools budgets are stretched to the limits as is, where would the money and resources come from?

And of course, given all the concerns about schools not teaching children the basics of reading, writing and maths, what should be dropped from the timetable to enable this new style PE to be carried out? Or should the school day be extended? (Cost issues again, plus tiredness of the children!)

Lulu, your post was interesting, obviously I agree the favouritism and egotism is not acceptable, but surely it's a good idea to show the skill stop the lesson and focus on skills.

Northern, I am not disagreeing. I am just saying that if anyone thinks PE lessons are about being active and keeping fit, they are grossly mistaken. I never see children exert themselves unless they are actually doing a fitness test and even then it is only the few most competitive and it is once a year.
Even in fitness tests, lots of them just walk or slowly run.

As someone who struggled with PE due to undiagnosed dyspraxia - DFOD.

More opportunities for enjoyable and sustainable exercise and learning about various aspects of a healthy lifestyle like fitness & diet - YANBU
PE and "games" as it actually exists in a lot of schools- YABU

My DC had sport every day at primary. It was just part and parcel of daily school life.

The school felt that being outdoors doing something physical was important for both body and mind.

IIRC a couple if times per week we sent the little ones into school already in their kit to reduce changing time etc.

That said, the school day was longer than average and would have sent many a MNer into meltdown .

Go running with your kids. Sign them up for football, netball, dancing, swimming, hockey etc.

Why in God's name would you expect that it's the schools responsibility?

'I dont think children who struggle with pe should have compulsory after school pe lessons, not all children are good at pe.'

Those of us who are and were crap at PE would benefit from being offered an alternative. Like circus skills, bowling, archery, trampolining, martial arts, cycling etc.
If someone is failing, then more of the same after a long day isn't likely to help. But that would require the sports-obsessed to be both creative and see the failures as individuals whose needs aren't being met. Neither of which I have observed as being strengths in the PE departments of schools I know.

imo schools should have structured, formal pe maybe once or twice a week and 'running about like madthings' everyday.

I think school PE has been responsible for putting off millions of individuals exercising for life.

PE shouldn't be about whether you are "good at PE" or not. Fining a physical fitness programme to enhance health is far more important that being good or coming first.
With its heavy leanings towards competitive and team sports it is not for everyone.
Many hate these activities, I know I did, and it took me a decade to shrug off those horrible hockey days and find exercise that I enjoy.

I visit my local leisure centre to exercise several times a week. Of the hundreds taking part very few are indulging in competitive or team activity. I would like to see this approach in schools, fitness classes like zumba, dance, meta-fit, weight training, yoga, insanity, kettle bells etc, where the emphasis is on achieving personal goals rather than coming firts.

Exercise for health isn't about coming first or beating someone- it is about increasing and maintaining activity to enhance your own body.

If you struggle with literacty and maths, the suport sessions aren't more of the same. They are tailored to the needs of the individual, with small steps and a lot of positive support. Even standard lessons have three or four levels of differentiation built in as expected.
Including teachers jumping on challenging others who are good at that stuff and then taunt, mock or dismiss those that aren't.
Which again, doesn't happen in any the majority of PE lessons.

Yes, I can spell literacy, but t and y are adjacent on the keyboard and I can't type very well.

There does need to be more PE in schools. The problem is that there is much talk about PE GCSE being binned, so therefore the 'trickle down affect' will mean that PE will stop being prioritised as schools won't be measured on PE and therefore exams culture will mean there is no point in spending time or money on it.

I was thinking the other day how quickly PE GCSE take up would change if the red brick universities insisted on having a GCSE qualification for all degree courses.

Am I right in thinking the French Bacc requires PE?

I think school PE can do more harm than good.

So you have a large cohort that is made to do a subject. 1/3 are indifferent candidates.
You are unwilling to differentiate or adapt to the needs of the individual, to change your teaching or to unpick the root causes of the failure of certain children to improve, enjoy or actively participate.you know that you need a certain % to pass a certain level.
So you either ignore the losers who will never reach an acceptable standard, or you yell at them, intimidate them and rely on negative peer pressure to make them either conform and attempt or become so aggressive and negative that you can kick them out of the lesson.
Imagine if literacy or maths was run that way, the teachers would be in real trouble with parents, OFSTED and hompefully senior management. Yet PE seems to have evolved very little over the years, especially in secondary.

Fgs... No. Ds is in a wheelchair, differentiation for children like him is very difficult. Yet I can't take him out to do what he can do in PE. I can after school, but schools don't do horse riding, regular swimming etc. I had a meeting about sports day so he could be included. PE is not the same as exercise, and fitness. And it will get worse as he gets older.